Valve, Blizzard Reach DOTA Trademark Agreement

Blizzard said today it has reached an agreement with Valve regarding the trademark issue with DOTA.

According to the agreement, Valve will continue to use DOTA commercially, including DOTA 2, while Blizzard will preserve noncommercial use of DOTA for its community with regard to player-created maps for Warcraft III and StarCraft II.

"Both Blizzard and Valve recognize that, at the end of the day, players just want to be able to play the games they're looking forward to, so we're happy to come to an agreement that helps both of us stay focused on that," said Rob Pardo, executive vice president of game design at Blizzard Entertainment.

"As part of this agreement, we're going to be changing the name of Blizzard DOTA to Blizzard All-Stars, which ultimately better reflects the design of our game. We look forward to going into more detail on that at a later date."

Valve president Gabe Newell added: "We're pleased that we could come to an agreement with Blizzard without drawing things out in a way that would benefit no one. We both want to focus on the things our fans care about, creating and shipping great games for our communities."

According to the press release, the companies do not plan to discuss the terms of the agreement beyond today's announcement.

I am actually really impressed. I know it must have been awkward, but both companies coming out with the statements expressed in this article shows a sort of comradery that isn't often seen in the gaming industry these days. I love both of these companies dearly, and I think great things have yet to come from both of them. I, for one, raise a glass to both Valve and Blizzard!